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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29103423">against all odds, we exist together</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/active_galactic_nuclei/pseuds/active_galactic_nuclei'>active_galactic_nuclei</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Slipknot (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Reader-Insert, i can't write angst to save my life so honestly i desperately hope this is good</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 13:01:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,551</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29103423</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/active_galactic_nuclei/pseuds/active_galactic_nuclei</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>the one where the universe puts you and joey together even when it's hard to see why</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joey Jordison/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>against all odds, we exist together</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i have never written paul but he only has like three lines, regardless i hope i did good. also this is my formal plea for someone to comment on this literally anything i feel like i am writing these fics for nobody and yelling into the void</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had never been like Joey to cry. Sulk, yell, and break shit? Yeah. But crying? Joey just didn’t <em> do </em>that. Of course he had emotions, probably more so than the average person, but he much preferred to take them out in violence, slamming doors and starting screaming matches with someone to take the hurt off of himself. So when you came downstairs to get a cup of coffee this morning only to find Joey in tears sitting on the floor, you were understandably concerned. </p><p>Walking over to him, you were struck with just how <em> small </em>he seemed to look. Sitting in the fetal position wearing a shirt that, upon second glance, was certainly too big to be his, he looked almost childishly small. As you sit next to him you place a hand on his knee, and, as small and simple a gesture as it was, he finds comfort in the familiar weight of your hand grounding him where he sits. And when he extends a single cold, shaky hand to rest on top of yours, you finally let out the breath that had started to go stagnant in your lungs with anxiety. </p><p><em> “Do you want to talk about this?” </em>you find yourself asking.</p><p>
  <em> “No.” </em>
</p><p>And the silence creeps in slowly, swallowing you whole as the seconds tick away and it eats at you like vultures on a carcass, slowly and deliberately. But then Joey’s leaning his head over to rest in the crook of your shoulder and somehow it makes everything feel a little bit ok. Because even though you just want to fix this, you don’t even know what “this” is, and the fact that he can find comfort in your touch tells you that you must be doing <em>something </em>right here. </p><p>You stay like that for a while, on the floor in the doorway with Joey halfway in your lap in a position that's definitely making both of your legs fall asleep uncomfortably underneath you, but it’s fine because it’s Joey and you would probably cut your own fucking legs off if that was what it would take to make him feel better. But, evidently, it's not, because as quick as it seemingly started it stops. And then he’s kissing you and trying his hardest to flatten out the shakes in his voice as he asks you what you needed in the kitchen. And something in you knows not to ask about what just happened and so you tell him about the coffee, and all of a sudden the last bit of evidence that Joey could possibly have been crying thirty seconds ago disappears as he springs up to grab the coffee pot from the machine and take a sip of coffee from it from it completely black because he’s fucking gross like that and he knows you’ll hate it. And you’re laughing now and he’s laughing back with you and it’s fucking music to your ears and you almost let yourself forget about how this day just started for the time being. </p><p>It’s not until two hours later when you’re sitting next to him on the couch that you try and ask what happened earlier. And it’s so hard to read him when he’s upset, but you can see his face fall a little and for a second you’re worried you may have offended him or something but instead he’s just pulling you closer to him to kiss you on the forehead with a sigh. And you wait in silence for a second for him to say something but all you get is “I don’t want to talk about it right now” and you’re just grateful that he’s feeling better now so you decide to just let sleeping dogs lie right now and drop it.</p><p>The problem with letting sleeping dogs lie is that sometime, eventually, they have to wake up. It isn’t until you get out of the shower that night and hear your boyfriend sobbing softly outside the door that you realize, with a sinking feeling in your gut, that there’s something <em>wrong</em>. And then you’re tugging your clothes onto your body and peeking out through the door frame to see what’s wrong. And you almost wish that he was hurt because then you could just fix this, but he’s not and so there's no answer and that’s so much scarier. </p><p>And so you climb into bed next to him and pull him to your chest and he counts your heartbeats until you both fall asleep in silence. And the next morning when you wake up both of your joints crack like fucking glowsticks because you were sleeping in the most uncomfortable position ever and you laugh at the sound as you both get out of bed, but you still don’t talk about it. And it kills you inside not to know but it it kills you even more that he won’t just<em> tell </em>you. But what can you do but stand by his side and love him through it?</p><p>But two days later, the crying hasn’t stopped and you can’t take it anymore. The guilt is eating at you and if you don’t do something about it soon you fear you might explode. So you call the only person you can think of that might be closer to Joey than you, and that’s Paul. And of course he picks up by the second ring he wants to help when you tell him what’s going on because he’s just a fucking saint like that. </p><p>
  <em> “So you want me to figure out what’s wrong with your boyfriend?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Something like that, yeah” </em>
</p><p>And so you do your best to act surprised when Joey tells you that Paul invited him over for drinks and that he’ll be home tomorrow because he doesn’t want to drive home after that. So you kiss him and tell him to say hi to Paul for you and that’s that. Except it's not, because as soon as you hear his car pull out of the driveway you’re biting your nails with anxiety like a mom sending her kid to their first day of kindergarten. You’re not even sure why you’re so nervous, maybe it’s because you just want to protect him, maybe it’s because you’re scared to hear the answer in the end, who knows. All you know is that you don’t find sleep until well into the early hours into the morning as your mind races with every what if under the sun. </p><p>So when you wake up at noon the next day to your boyfriend cooking breakfast, you can’t help but be a little… confused. Firstly, joey fucking hated cooking and he couldn’t do it to save his life. But also, you were expecting… well not this. You had expected fighting, anger, hurt, hell <em> anything. </em>But here he was, making eggs on the stove like this was fucking normal. But every storm sets an eerie sort of calm beforehand, and so you held out. But as you watched Joey making two plates of scrambled eggs with toast and talked about how you slept and how Paul was doing, it seemed to you that no storm was brewing at all. And so, when Joey asked you whether you still loved him or not, you were more than a little caught off guard.</p><p><em> “Babe, what are you talking about? I love you more than anything,” </em>comes your reply, fast and without hesitation because, god, why would you ever have to hesitate about that?</p><p><em> “I don’t think I deserve you” </em>he chokes out, half eaten eggs long since forgotten on the coffee table.</p><p>And you can feel your heart break at that, because your amazing, brilliantly talented, kind, beautiful, perfect fucking boyfriend thinks <em> he </em> isn’t good enough for <em> you </em> ? And so you tell him that. And he looks up at you with those big watery blue eyes and you’re struck by just how <em> pretty </em>he looks. And he asks you if you mean it and you almost laugh at how ridiculous that sounds because of-fucking-course you mean it. And then he kisses you and it’s full to the brim with something deeper than love, deeper than adoration, just absolute reverence and it’s almost enough to make you start crying yourself. And you tangle yourselves up in eachothers bodies, just wanting to feel as close to each other as physically possible. </p><p>When you call Paul later, you can’t help but ask him what the fuck he said to Joey. </p><p>
  <em> “I told him that he had an amazing partner at home who wanted to be there for him no matter what” </em>
</p><p>And hearing that from him made you realize just how much you loved Joey, so much that even the people around you could see it. And so when you were both coming upstairs for bed and you were telling Joey that you loved him, everything made sense again. And as you were standing outside on the balcony together you looked up to the infinite black expanse of the sky, and you realized how absolutely tiny you were. And when you looked at Joey and saw the stars reflect in his eyes you realized that against all odds, you had somehow managed to exist right here together. And nothing could be more lucky than that. </p><p>
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